I work at a consulting engineering firm and write a lot of reports that are read by the public. I have an opportunity to recommend a different font for all of our written documents and am looking for something more modern/fresh than Times New Roman. Also open to recommendations for purpose specific communities about...
Our designs have to comply with ADA, so accessibility is definitely a familiar consideration. This looks like any other professional looking sans-serif font, so if it’s more accessible for low vision/vision impaired people, all the better! I like that uppercase i and lowercase L are distinguishable, which is a personal peeve I have with some sans serif fonts. Thanks for the suggestion!
It feels like low effort to use the default Office font when there are so many other options, but in my sans serif font tests Calibri ended up looking the best so far. I really didn’t want to like it! Curious where you think serif fonts belong? I don’t know shit about fonts/graphic design…
Definitely need to avoid giant fixed-width fonts. My reports often run close to 100 pgs with Times New Roman, and using a typewriter font would blow them up even more. I’ll look into the open source suggestions, thanks!
Dyslexie was one of the first fonts I looked at specifically for accessibility purposes. Unfortunately, despite it’s utility, it looks too much like a ‘fun’ font for our documents. Our reports are publicly published for the legal/administrative record, and need to reflect that level of professionalism. :/
Someone else suggested a font that’s helpful for vision impaired people that I will take forward in this process, so maybe I can get a different accessible font through. Really appreciating the thoughtfulness for people with various reading challenges!
Thanks for the recs. I thought one of the fonts in the link was called Potato Sans, so now that one is my new personal favorite forever, even if it’s actually called Pontano Sans. :D
This is super helpful! Fun fact - Erewhon is also a small chain of very high end markets in Los Angeles. Now I’m going to have to research what this word means and who came up with it first.
What counts as print these days though? When I first started working, we’d get literal boxes shipped to us with 1,000+ page documents inside. Now it’s a cloud link that opens with a PDF reader. Does that still count as print? Genuinely curious, because I see conflicting advice depending on if its print or not.
What are your favorite fonts for technical reports?
I work at a consulting engineering firm and write a lot of reports that are read by the public. I have an opportunity to recommend a different font for all of our written documents and am looking for something more modern/fresh than Times New Roman. Also open to recommendations for purpose specific communities about...